During the American revolution in 1776, a rebel inventor devised a daring weapon against the British Navy- a bomb-carrying submarine

Nearly 250 years ago, an American inventor devised a weapon that sounded almost impossible for its time: a tiny, one-man submarine designed to sneak beneath a British warship and attach a timed explosive to its hull. In September 1776, the strange wooden vessel known as the Turtle was sent after the British flagship HMS Eagle in one of the earliest attempts at underwater combat.

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The secret weapon built to challenge the Royal Navy

Connecticut inventor David Bushnell believed the British Royal Navy could not easily be defeated in a direct confrontation. Instead, he looked for a way to strike a warship where it was most vulnerable.


His answer was the Turtle, an acorn-shaped submersible constructed from wood and reinforced with iron hoops. The vessel was small enough for only one person and was designed to approach an enemy ship underwater without being detected.

Bushnell spent years developing the idea, working with his brother Ezra and other craftsmen and colleagues. The submarine was eventually equipped with pumps, valves, a compass and a barometer to help its pilot navigate and control the vessel.

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How the Turtle was supposed to attack

The Turtle carried a large powder charge that could be attached to the hull of an enemy ship. A timer allowed the pilot to set the explosive and then escape before it detonated.

Getting the submarine into position, however, was far from easy. The pilot had to operate the vessel manually, using a pedal-operated propeller and a hand crank. To dive, the Turtle took in water; to rise again, the pilot had to pump the water out.

Inside the cramped vessel, even breathing was a concern. The pilot had to pedal, operate the equipment and eventually attach the explosive while working with a limited supply of air.

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The target was the British flagship HMS Eagle

The original plan was to use the Turtle against British ships in Boston. But by the time the submarine was ready, British forces had moved their fleet to New York.

On the night of September 6–7, 1776, pilot Ezra Lee took the Turtle toward HMS Eagle.

Lee managed to reach the warship and get underneath it. He could even hear British sailors talking on deck. But when he attempted to attach the explosive, the submarine's fastening mechanism failed to penetrate the ship's metal hull.

As Lee later wrote: “When I rowed under the stern of the ship,” he wrote, “[I] could see the men on deck and hear them talk—I then shut down all the doors, sunk down and came under the bottom of the ship, up with the screw against the bottom, but found that it would not enter.”

Unable to attach the charge, Lee abandoned the attempt. The explosive was left behind and later detonated in the harbor, but it did not damage the Eagle.

The submarine's mission ended in failure

The Turtle was used in two more attempted attacks, but neither succeeded. The fate of the unusual submarine is uncertain. A British attack later sank the sloop believed to have been transporting it, although Bushnell maintained that he recovered the vessel and returned it home.

Despite its failed missions, the Turtle represented a remarkable leap in military thinking.

Why the Turtle still matters

The submarine did not immediately transform naval warfare. Its wooden hull, primitive propulsion and one-person design made it impractical for sustained underwater operations.

But the idea behind it was revolutionary. Bushnell had demonstrated that an attacker could attempt to approach a warship from beneath the surface, rather than engaging it directly.

Historian Evan Wilson describes the Turtle as an early indication of the possibilities of underwater warfare, even though the technology needed to make submarines practical was still more than a century away.

Its story endures for another reason: in 1776, while the world's most powerful navy dominated the seas, a tiny wooden vessel carrying a single person and a timed bomb attempted to challenge it from below.